The Island

Rating: 7/10 (2 November 2006)

After watching the movie The Island I definitely can say that it was a spectacular movie. It contained a lot of action and the idea of the plot is nice. But was it all that great? I'm going to have to say no, because the longer I think about the movie, the worse is gets.
The movie starts great: a society of clones, or in the movie called agnates, live together in huge hidden buildings, thinking that they are the only survivors of a world-wide contamination. The truth is that they actually are clones of rich people who paid a lot of money to get a clone of themselves, so that they would have a insurance policy when they need for example a liver or a heart. When the sponsors of the clones need a body part, there will be lottery and the 'chosen ones' will go to the Island, the only place left on earth that is not contaminated. Of course, this isn't true, there is no Island. What really will happen to them, is that they'll have surgery, get ridden of the needed body parts and after that, die.
The two main characters, Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta, find out the truth about the Island and escape from their 'prison'. As soon as they come into the 'real' world, the action begins. After a few minutes I already got fed up with it. OK, the special effects were great! But it was all just too surreal, nobody would survive things like jumping of a huge sky liner.. The action scene with train wheels was also very nerve breaking, because where the hell do people need train wheels for when they have trains floating on magnetic force?
The story, the plot, of The Island is well thought. Cloning people is and will be a fascinating subject but the story of the movie isn't that original. Some parts of the movie are very similar to the book Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley. First, the 'production' of the clones looks very much like the production of the Bokanovski Groups. They are created in test tubes and brought up by hypnopaedia, also known as sleep teaching. Also the buildings the clones live in look very much like the description of the buildings in Brave New World and everybody has to do their own chore, for instant in the movie they have to inject pipes with some liquid. This looks a bit like the jobs that the Epsilons have to do in the novel, they have to do all kind of 'stupid' chores, everybody can do it. The clones are a little bit treated as Epsilons. Last but not least, it takes place the future. The technology is very important and everybody is wearing a white uniform, something that is similar to the uniforms of the alphas, betas etc. in Huxley's novel.
So if you like good movies with deep thoughts, I would not watch this movie. The begin promises a lot but the end is very disappointing. A shame, I would say, but still very good material for a lazy afternoon when you are in the mood for a 'thrilling' action movie and you don't care about reality.